Good morning. Let’s basketball.

På Blekevollen; Harriet Backer; 1886-87

On Thursday night, Jimmy Butler indicated his displeasure about the state of things with his role and future in Miami in a post-game press conference. Shortly after that, news broke that Butler wanted to be traded literally anywhere. On Friday morning, the Heat officially responded: the team suspended their star for seven games for conduct detrimental to the franchise and said they would work to find him a new home.

A 7-game suspension is wild for a trade demand. The Heat allude to more than that playing a part.

“We have suspended Jimmy Butler for seven games for multiple instances of conduct detrimental to the team over the course of the season and particularly the last several weeks,” the team said in a statement Friday night. “Through his actions and statements, he has shown he no longer wants to be part of this team.”

That tells me the franchise had looked past some of Butler’s earlier shenanigans (including his existing trade requests laundered through the media and denied by his agent), but now that Butler is going full villain in Miami, they’d like to extract a little pain while keeping him away from the team. The suspension’s worth more than $2 million. I suspect either it doesn’t hold with league or union pushback, or it becomes irrelevant because a trade happens more quickly.

Notably, the suspension only takes Butler halfway to the trade deadline: January 15. (The deadline is February 6.) If the Heat haven’t traded Butler by then, and he hasn’t done anything to justify a new suspension, Miami will need to pay him to stay away after the team returns from a long Western road trip. The Heat don’t like paying players to stay away, but this was the potential cost of waiting to extend Butler’s contract.

When whispers about Butler crept up last spring and persisted through the summer, this was the eventuality everyone was seeing: Butler, a proud and passionate player, would be aggravated if the Heat didn’t pay him what he felt he’d earned in future salary. Just like in Minnesota. ...